agileflow-tech-debt

Technical debt prioritization uses impact, urgency, and effort scoring to rank items. Extract debt from code reviews or discussions, classify by type (Code Quality, Performance, Security, Maintainability, Testing), rate each 1–5, then compute priority as (Impact × Urgency) / Effort to guide what to fix first for maximum ROI.

Track five debt categories: Code Quality (style, duplication), Performance (slow queries, inefficient algorithms), Security (vulnerabilities, unsafe patterns), Maintainability (unclear code, poor modularity), and Testing (missing coverage, flaky tests). Document each with classification, impact rating, and proposed action.

Use centralized debt documentation in a shared format to surface accumulating issues and initiate stories for high-priority items. This ensures visibility during code reviews, retrospectives, and planning sessions so maintenance doesn't silently degrade development velocity.

Yes. Apply debt identification during code reviews to catch quality gaps early, and during retrospectives to surface developer pain points and plan refactoring work. Document findings with effort and impact estimates to inform sprint planning.

Prioritize using the formula (Impact × Urgency) / Effort. High-priority items—those with significant impact and urgency but moderate effort—deliver maximum maintainability gains per unit of work and should be addressed before low-priority accumulated debt.